


Invisibility

by JediDiplomat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-09
Updated: 2006-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:47:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/238157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediDiplomat/pseuds/JediDiplomat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean knows his place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisibility

Dean watched his brother and his father closely. One of two things would happen. They'd either have a blow out fight, in which case, Dean's job was to break them up, or they'd make up. Which made Dean pretty much invisible. As much as they needed the latter, there was a part of him that liked working with just Sam. Just the two of them, no old man to compete for affection. So he watched and waited and after a moment he knew. In that instant, he became invisible.

Dean was used to it. When he was a child he rationalized that Sammy needed Dad. He was younger, just a baby. He needed Dad's attention more. Then came the night he'd almost let Sammy die. Never mind that it was the Strega or that he never would have been able to kill it on his own. No, that was the night he realized that his invisibility had nothing to do with Sammy's age. It had everything to do with not being Sammy. He hadn't lied to Sam about that. It was true, all of it. He just left out that the look in Dad's eyes had always been there. He'd just been too blind to see it before he failed.

Sam didn't understand. He could he? He'd always been the golden child, the one to be protected above all else, including Dean. There were reasons why Dean let no one in but Sam. There were places in his mind that even Sam wasn't allowed to go. Places that were happy when Sam and Dad started fighting. Places that were deliriously giddy when Sam finally left for good. It meant he, Dean, finally had Dad all to himself.

Sam's leaving hadn't changed anything though. It just meant that Dean took the full brunt of their father's personality. If Dean was hoping to become more than just Sam's shadow, he'd be waiting until the next afterlife. Dean had one purpose and one alone. Protect Sam. Everything else was secondary, including killing the thing that killed Mom. With Sam gone, Dean had lost what little place he'd had in the Winchester hierarchy.

Dean tried everything, including Sam's trick of leaving. He hadn't been completely honest with Sam about Cassie. He didn't tell Sam how he'd told Dad he was done, that he was staying with Cassie, getting a real job, a real home. That they'd never find Mom's killer and he wasn't so sure he even wanted to anymore. He didn't tell Sam because he didn't want Sam to find out that Dad hadn't even cared. No arguing, no fights, no ultimatums. Just a simple “if that's what you want.” Dean left, for about a year, before he'd received a text from Dad. Coordinates, nothing more. He told himself that Dad would only send for him if was important. He was half packed before he remembered he had given up the hunting, for Cassie. So he told her, and she flipped out. Blew up at him and told him that he was fucking psycho and Dean left. Went back to Dad, because Dad needed him.

Things went back to normal, or what passed for normal in their freak family. Until the day Dad disappeared. At first, Dean had thought it was retaliation. Pay back for choosing Cassie over Dad. But then it'd been months and John Winchester may be a sorry son of a bitch but he wasn't cruel. Not to his boys. Not to Sam. So Dean went, willing beg his brother if he had to, to get Sam. Then he put Sam in danger. Willingly, knowingly using Sam as bait to draw their father out. It killed him to do it, to deliberately put his baby brother in danger, but he had no other choice. John Winchester might not see Dean, but he always saw Sammy.

“Dad, let us come with you,” Sam said. There was an ever so slight emphasis on 'us' and a desperate look toward Dean. Maybe, Dean mused, Sam wasn't so dense on the subject after all. Dean wondered, not for the first time, what that shape shifter had said to Sam in those sewers. Dean hadn't asked and Sam had never offered. Dean wasn't sure he wanted to know, because Sam would go all girly on him and demand they hash it out. Dean couldn't afford the distractions. It was safer if he just didn't rock the boat. The Winchester men were back and Dean knew his place in the order. It was enough. It had to be.  



End file.
